


The End of the World

by therealspm



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Complete, F/M, First Time, Romance, Season/Series 07, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 19:52:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6253714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therealspm/pseuds/therealspm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place right after the end of Season 7 episode Orison.  Scully is struggling with what she did and Mulder is trying to be supportive.  They cuddle, they talk about the big questions, they fight, they make up….</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End of the World

**Author's Note:**

> So goes my first foray into X-files fic, as I am a new convert to the fandom. Unfortunately I don’t have a beta for this fandom so I apologize for any spelling/grammar/style errors.

He had smiled when he told her the world didn’t end. Secretly, he wished it had, wished it would.

Not in the four-horsemen-zombie-apocalypse sense, and not because a bunch of computers forgot how to tell the date. And not the whole world either. Just theirs. The world they had created for themselves together, elaborately and painstakingly, over the years. It was a world built on the respect and understanding they shared for each other, populated with friendly touches, stolen glances, a kiss on the forehead. It was a limited world though, with clear boundaries they had yet to cross.

Lately, this world was as much a prison for him as it was a comfort. Over time his feelings had changed from contentment to longing. He often dreamed of them together, in the most basic sense of the word. Arms and legs entangled, breath mingling and rising, joined, up into the air. It always took him a minute to adjust when he woke from these dreams. And every time the realization that they were not memories would jolt him into a mood that he could not shake for days.

At times, he longed to see their world burned to ash, razed and rebuilt as something greater. Other times he would find himself paralyzed, if but momentarily, worried that what they had would fall apart. That it was a house of cards and someone was about to sneeze.

The part of him that wished for flame had hoped the kiss he stole in that antiseptic hallway just as the millennium turned would be the push that they needed. That it would signal the beginning of a new world for them.

But it didn’t. 

After the New Year, they traveled to Virginia and then Chicago. They spoke to each other a hundred times over. And nothing was changed. Their symbiosis of mind and spirit, which had always seemed so easy, remained nearly effortless. But their hearts, and their bodies, remained separate. Close, nearly touching, but apart.

It took time, but he resigned himself to the status quo. He loved her, and they were together, in a sense. And the world they had so carefully built, however imperfect he felt it was, would have to be enough.

***

He could hardly believe it when he heard the gun go off. He whipped his head around to watch the ceiling explode in glass and debris, then back to her. As Donnie Pfaster fell to the ground, he saw his expression mirrored in her face. Shock, fear, disbelief, guilt.

When they asked him what had happened he told them the truth, such that it was. The only truth that really mattered anyway. She didn’t have a choice.

He sat on the edge of her bed in silence as she packed clothes into a small bag. When she finished, she stopped in the middle of the room and stared at him. Her face still carried an echo of the shocked look he had seen an hour before.

“C’mon, Scully,” he said, shrugging one shoulder as he stood, “It’s too late to get a room anywhere. We’ll go to my place. I’ll sleep on the couch.” He paused, then smiled, “I mean, I do most nights anyway.” He hoped his attempt at humor would help bring her back to herself, but her expression remained fixed, like a mask.

He placed his hand between her shoulders and led her out of the apartment, out of the building, past the blue and red lights still flashing against the grey sidewalk, to his car.

They rode in silence. This was not altogether unusual for them, though he usually preferred to fill the car with their spirited debate. Occasionally she would allow him to play one of the cassette tapes that he optimistically carried with him in his luggage. Once, on a cool summer night in southern Georgia, on a case that had – for once – ended with an easy explanation, she even sang along as he picked at the bag of sunflowers seeds, throwing spent shells out the window.

He thought of that moment now, her voice – deeper and more sultry than he would have imagined – flowing through the car and into the night as she draped one hand out the window, lazily making shapes with her fingers. He had caught her eye and smiled, teasing her, and she had smiled back. Later that night, he had told her a joke and nearly swerved off the road when she responded with a giggle. 

He could count on one hand the number of times he had heard her giggle like that. He remembered each of them, and he would sometimes play them through his head, like a movie, lying in bed awake, too troubled by the mysteries of the universe to fall asleep. Thinking about it now helped settle his mind and brought warmth to the iciness that had taken up residence in his core when he’d played the message on his answering machine that led him to her apartment and the scene he found there.

He thought about what she had said to him afterward. That she had perhaps been a vessel, that some force may have taken her over in those moments, had forced her hand when she might have stayed it. His jaw ached at her uncertainty, her fear that she had somehow let evil into herself.

Instinctively he knew she was thinking about the same thing. He glanced over at her and by the light of a passing street lamp he saw her chin tighten. He wished there was something he could say to comfort her now, that he could infect her with his certainty just this once, that she would believe what he believed with no questioning and simply because of the force of his belief.

But he knew her better than that. He knew she would resist him as strongly as she ever had, that there was nothing he could say to her that would calm her restless thoughts. The only proof he had to offer was his belief, and to her that was no proof at all. It was what drove him crazy about her, in more ways than one.

***

She decided to take a shower when they got to his apartment. He understood why. Cultures and religions throughout the world looked to water as a cleansing force. The Christians had their baptism, the pagans bathed themselves before rituals, Celtics believed that running water was a barrier to the dead. He understood the hope that a physical cleansing might somehow jumpstart the spiritual one she felt she needed. 

While she showered, he hastily tried to tidy his apartment. Not that it bothered him that she would be privy to the mess he lived in. She was well used to the normal state of his home by now, and had only ever reacted with the occasional raised eyebrow. But he was at a loss for what to do for her, and clearing out the clutter of his living room and bedroom was, at that moment, the only way he could think to comfort her.

As he started to place clean sheets on the bed, he heard her call for him from the bathroom. “Mulder?”

“Yeah, Scully?” he yelled back.

“I, uh…” she trailed off.

He walked towards the bathroom and saw her standing in a doorway, wrapped in a towel, her hair dripping ribbons of water down her shoulders. “What is it Scully?”

“I didn’t think to pack any pajamas. And I can’t…,” she glanced behind her to where her clothes lay crumpled on the floor.

He immediately understood. “I’ll go grab you something. I’ll be right back.”

He thumbed through his closet and pulled out a blue button-up shirt, one that had been torn at the elbow in some scuffle he could no longer remember. He walked to his dresser and took out a pair of gym shorts, the kind that had a drawstring at the waist that she could cinch to keep them on her narrow hips.

He walked back to the bathroom and handed the clothes to her. “Will these work?”

She examined each of the items in turn, her eyes pausing for a moment at the tear in the elbow. “Yes, these will work.” She took a step back and began to close the door to the bathroom, but paused, “Mulder?” She looked up at him, and at that moment he thought she looked so vulnerable, so breakable, so unlike the woman he had come to share his life with. But he blinked and she was the same Scully he had always known, her pale eyes steely, her lips set in a practiced and determined not-quite-pout. So quick was the transition that he thought that he had imagined it. That his hope that she would finally let that last part of her guard down had blinded him, made him see what he wanted to see, not what was. It was a danger he was prone to, one she had warned him about before in the context of their work.

He looked at her, hoping his eyes would not betray his quick journey from hope to disappointment. “Yeah?”

“Never mind,” she said quickly, turning and closing the door behind her.

He took the opportunity to change into his own pajamas, slipping quickly into a clean pair of boxer briefs and a crumpled basketball shirt dug out from the bottom of his closet. He threw his sweater and jeans on top of the pile of dirty clothes gathered in the corner. He wondered absently where his laundry basket had gone, and remembered he had used it to take a pile of papers he’d discovered to Frohicke, Byers, and Langly to be analyzed. At an antique bookstore he had found old writings from the early nineteenth century that spoke of moving starlight and stolen minutes, describing what he believed to be alien abductions. He had been so excited by the possibilities contained in those pages that he forgot to bring his basket back. Nearly a month had passed since then.

He heard the door to the bathroom open up behind him and he turned around. The shirt he had given her fell a few inches above her knees. The shorts hung loosely from her hips and she absentmindedly hitched them up as she walked towards him, her fingers hidden in the long sleeves of his shirt. She looked almost comical in the get-up, like she had been shrunk in the wash. A miniature Scully. He bit back a smile, gripping his bottom lip tightly between his teeth while the urge passed. Over the past seven years, he had learned there were times when his teasing would not be well-received, and he figured this was probably one of those times.

“I, uh, made up the bed for you, Scully.” He held up his hand in an imitation of the Boy Scout’s salute, “I promise you they’re clean.” Clean–ish, he thought. Close enough for government work.

“Thanks, Mulder.” He studied her face carefully. It looked just as haunted as it had under the streetlights during the drive. The lines along her forehead formed deep, creases that paralleled her hairline and her lips were pursed together, the corners turned down slightly in what he had come to know as her attempt to hide a frown. So much for the cleansing power of water.

“Are you okay, Scully?”

She looked up at him. “I’m fine, Mulder. Stop fretting.” But he could see the pain that filled her eyes, and he knew she was lying to him. He wanted to scold her for not sharing her pain with him. Hadn’t they been through enough together? Didn’t she owe him the truth? Wasn’t he entitled to more than a barely disguised lie and a shrugging brush-off? But he held his tongue.

They stared at each other from a few feet apart, his neck bent downwards and her head rolled back slightly so they could catch each others eyes despite their height difference. The silence grew and he began to wonder if they stayed like that for too long if they could somehow meld their minds together, could learn to communicate without words, without even a look. Could he, by sheer force of will, break down that barrier between them? The barriers that kept all humans separate from each other and infuriatingly dependent on words to haphazardly and imperfectly connect.

She broke eye contact first, after what was really only a few seconds. She forced a yawn, “Well, I’m wiped. Do you mind?” She gestured to the bed.

He snapped back into himself at her words. “Sure, I’ll just get out of your way.” He placed his hand on her shoulder for a moment as he walked past her and squeezed. Stepping out of the room, he paused in the doorway and turned around. Looking at a dent in the carpeting, he said “Um, if you need anything I’ll be—I’ll be right out there, obviously.” He gestured uselessly, “I think I have a spare blanket around somewhere if you get cold. Um…,” he trailed off, rubbing one hand over the shorter hair on the back of his head.

“Thanks, Mulder.”

“Sleep tight, Scully.”

He turned on the TV and settled onto the couch, muting the sound and switching on the closed captioning so as not to disturb her sleep. With no other sound in the apartment, though, he could hear every move she made in the bedroom. He lay there, unable to close his eyes, half-focused on the television, half-focused on the sounds of her tossing and turning in his bed. He felt a slight twinge in his chest, something a poet might call a pulled heartstring, every time he heard her move, wondering what dark thoughts were keeping her awake. When she would still for a few minutes, he’d let himself relax, only to jolt when he heard the sheets rustle and the bedframe creak yet again.

After almost an hour, she got up. He heard the sound of her small feet padding softly across the carpet.

“Mulder?” she said from the doorway.

He looked over at her, pretending that he had not spent the time acutely attuned to where she was and what she was doing. “Can’t sleep?”

She sighed and crossed her arms, leaning slightly against the wall, “Why are you still up?”

He gestured at the television, “How could I sleep with this riveting masterpiece on my TV screen?”

She looked at the screen. It showed a close-up shot of a small bird, focused on a blue chest rimmed in a dark grey V, then switched to a short video of the bird alighting from a branch in slow motion. He noticed the echo of a smile cross her lips briefly, “It isn’t exactly ‘Greatest Swarms,’ is it?”

He moved into a sitting position on one end of the couch, pulling the blanket onto his lap to clear a space for her to sit. “Want to join in on the fun?”

“As tempting as that sounds, Mulder, I’m going to have to pass.” She licked the corner of her mouth quickly and pursed her lips together, “I actually came out here to ask you for a favor.”

“Sure, Scully, anything.”

“I keep—I mean, I can’t…I can’t keep my eyes closed. Would you stay in the room with me tonight?”

He was taken aback by the request. It was unlike her to ask him for support like this. Normally she would forge through her fears, compartmentalize herself until she broke. This is what she had done the first time they encountered Donnie Pfaster, and he had grown used to this pattern, grown to expect her to shut him out until she could not bear it. He had always admired the strength and independence of which this was born, but at the same time had resented her for the times she pushed him away.

Obviously, he would not turn such a clear request down coming from her. “No problem, “ he said, throwing the blanket to the side and standing up. “What’s keeping you awake?” Absentmindedly, he had let curiosity get the better of him and forgotten his earlier resolution to just let her be. He hid a wince.

She shifted her body away from him, drawing her arms tighter into herself, “I can’t talk about it with you, Mulder.”

“Why not?”

She dropped her hands to her sides, annoyed, “I just can’t, okay. You know, you have asked me to do some truly crazy things, Mulder. And you never tell me why. You never bother to offer me any kind of explanation. So I am asking you, please, just this once, let my reasons be my own. Can you do that?”

He held up his hands in a gesture of defeat. “I can do that.” She relaxed and looked away from him at the television again, though he knew she was not actually watching the birds. He raised one arm towards the bedroom, “Lead the way, Scully.”

She climbed into the right side of the bed, he circled around and settled himself under the covers on the left, neither of them speaking. He heard her click off the lamp and the room was plunged into darkness.

They lay there, neither of them moving. He could sense she was close to him, inches away, but could not see her in the darkness. He heard her move and suddenly felt her cold fingers gripping at his forearm, then his wrist, down to his hand. She interlaced her fingers with his and he squeezed her hand gently. The room filled with the sound of their breathing, light and uneven, the breaths of two people miles away from the realm of sleep.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness and he stared up at the ceiling, eyes taking in the familiar cracks and shadows. In this moment, he missed the mirrored waterbed that had so mysteriously appeared in his apartment one day, if only so he could watch her without disturbing her with his movement.

The minutes dragged on and he grew no closer to sleep, and he could hear no change in her breathing that would signal she had succumbed to her exhaustion.

She broke the silence. “Do you believe in evil?”

He turned his head to look over at her, and she did the same.

“You believe in all these fantastic things. Aliens, werewolves, monsters that few could even imagine.”

“After all this time, after everything we’ve seen, don’t you believe in some of those things too?”

“That’s beyond the point right now, Mulder. I’m asking if you believe that along with monsters our world contains evil.”

“Well,” he said, pulling his hand from hers and shifting to lie on his side, propping his head up with one hand. She turned her body to face him, tucking both her hands in between the pillow and her chin. “I think everything we’ve encountered that you would classify as ‘not entirely human,’ even if they have done terrible things, was generally acting out of a core biologicial imperative. The Jersey Devil was defending her child. That kid with the shark teeth needed to eat. Even Tooms took all those livers in order to survive.”

“What about Donnie Pfaster?”

“Pfaster was human, Scully.”

She frowned and looked away, pulling her arms in tighter to herself. “You don’t think people can be evil?”

He paused for a moment, thinking. “What Pfaster did is unthinkable. But people who do unthinkable things do them because they’re broken, not because they’re evil. Evil doesn’t profile.”

She stared at him and he could tell her mind was teeming with thought. But of what, he could not discern. Even with all the hours he had studied her face in an attempt to learn each and every one of her thoughts she kept hidden from the rest of the world, so much of her remained a mystery to him.

“Why are you asking me this?”

She bit her lip, and he could see her struggling with the decision to answer his question or ignore it. “Growing up, in church they taught us that evil has a name and a shape. That it takes corporeal form and walks the earth alongside us.”

“You don’t really believe that, Scully?” He knew his tone was dismissive, condescending even, but he was too caught up to police himself.

Her eyes hardened. “I don’t know, Mulder. I mean—“

“Scully, the idea of evil was invented by people as a way to explain why humans do bad things to other humans. It lets people avoid responsibility for their own actions. And it makes tragedy easier to swallow. It’s basic human group psychology. We’d rather believe that people do bad things because they’re evil than because they’re broken. Because that would mean that any of us could somehow be just as broken. Evil is a comforting lie we tell ourselves.”

She sighed, “Maybe you’re right.”

He sensed there was something she wasn’t saying. “But?”

She turned onto her back and fixed her eyes on the ceiling. “I never told you this, Mulder, but when he took me—the first time he took me, I saw something…. He put me in a closet and I sat there for what felt like hours, certain that I was going to die, that he would kill me. And when he opened the door, Mulder, I swear he wasn’t human. He looked like, well, I don’t have any other word for it but ‘demon’. He looked like something we learned about in catechism, evil incarnate. And before you say it, Mulder, I know. I know there is a completely rational explanation. I was scared and panicked and the fear and the adrenaline could easily have made me see something that wasn’t there. But… But what that doesn’t explain is the chill I felt up my spine from the minute we first started on the case. And it doesn’t explain how he was able to kill Orison, or why—why I felt so compelled to fire my gun tonight. And I just—”

“Scully, look at me,” he interrupted. She ignored him. He grabbed her chin lightly and forced her gaze towards his own. She turned her body to follow and he placed his hand on her neck, behind her ear, fingers tangled in her still-damp auburn hair. He realized that this was why she had found herself unable to sleep, that she was seeing this image in the shadows and from behind her closed eyes. He kissed her forehead, lips lingering on her soft skin, breathing in the scent of his own shampoo coming off her hair. He pulled her close to him and turned so that he was lying on his back once again, her head resting on his shoulder, her left hand splayed across his chest. “Whatever he was, he’s dead. And I say we don’t lose another minute of sleep to the bastard.”

Her body relaxed and, yawning, she murmured, “I think I might just agree with you this time.” She settled in against him. He could feel her breasts pressed up against his side, the warmth of her leg along his left thigh. He traced the sign for infinity lightly on her shoulder with his fingers as they both, finally, sunk into sleep.

***

Skinner reviewed their reports silently. She sat to his right, legs crossed, shoulders straight, hands clasped together in her lap. His own posture mirrored this, though he knew on him it looked less proper and more boyish, his long legs splayed out, elbows jutting from the side of the chair.

They had woken in each other’s arms. She had settled her body half over his during the middle of the night, her head in the middle of his chest, her left hand on his hip. His shirt had bunched up, so he could feel a couple of her fingers hot against the skin in between the hem and the waistband of his boxer briefs. Her leg straddled his own, knee tucked just inches below that sensitive-area-where-no-knee-should-ever-go. His arm was asleep and he could feel a wet spot of her drool in the middle of his chest, but he remained still for as long as he could, until the alarm jolted her awake.

“Everything looks in order here.” Skinner’s voice jolted him out of his memory. “Naturally, this needs to go to OPR for review before we close it out. But I doubt they’ll be coming to either of you with any questions. Unfortunately, I’ve been told you won’t be allowed back into your apartment for a few more days until the paperwork is completed.”

“Sir,” Scully shifted her shoulders uncomfortably, “as an officer-involved shooting, don’t you think that a more exacting review might be called for.”

Both men shifted to look at her. The piercing mix of indignance and disbelief Skinner usually reserved for him now directed at his partner. “Agent Scully, Donnie Pfaster was a death fetishist who killed five women and tried to make you number 6. He broke into the home of an FBI agent and held her hostage. It’s a miracle you were able to get free of your restraints and a blessing to this world that you shot him. According to Agent Mulder’s uncharacteristically thorough report, you were well within your rights to fire those shots. I won’t be wasting another thought on this creep and I suggest you don’t either.” 

Skinner stood up, indicating he had no interest in discussing the case further. The agents followed suit and began to shuffle out of the office.

“Agent Mulder, a word?”

He nodded to her to go on without him and, once the door closed, turned around to face his superior. “Sir?”

“How is she doing?”

He shrugged, “She’s fine, sir. A few bumps and bruises. She got free before any real damage.”

Skinner grimaced, “I didn’t mean physically.”

“She’s fine, sir.”

“Off the record.”

“Off the record, sir? She’s…well…she’s Scully.” He shrugged again. He couldn’t come up with a better answer, and he hoped Skinner understood everything that he had tried to contain in that one word explanation.

“Look after her, will you.”

“Sir, I think my report indicates pretty clearly that Scully isn’t in need of anyone to look out for her.” Privately, though, he thought, Always.

***

She slammed the door to his apartment a bit too forcefully behind her as he took off his coat and hung it from one of the pool balls on the coat rack. The outburst didn’t surprise him. They had spent the afternoon and early evening in his office, catching up on paperwork and other small matters that had been neglected while they joined the manhunt for Pfaster. Her mood had darkened as the day went on, and as it did he had retreated further into himself in search of a reason for her gloominess. Was it simply the aftereffects of her encounter with Pfaster? But she had been on the receiving end of more trauma than anyone deserved and he had seen her respond with only strength. Had he crossed a line the night before, pushed their relationship too far? He longed to pose the question to her, but feared the answer too much to vocalize it.

Bypassing him and the coat rack, she made a beeline to the bedroom. He followed after her and saw her packing her things into the small bag she had brought with her. He pulled a shirt from her hands. “What are you doing, Scully?”

She grabbed the shirt back and stuffed it into the bag, not bothering to fold it first. “What does it look like I’m doing, Mulder, I’m packing.”

“I thought Skinner said you can’t get back into your apartment yet.”

She stuffed a pair of shoes deep into the bag. “I’m not going to my apartment.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. My mother’s? A hotel? I can’t stay here.”

He knew it. He had crossed a line the night before. He frantically searched his mind for what to say next, how to apologize for the liberties he had taken when he had pulled her close in the dark. “Scully, I—“

She spun to look at him, still holding a black lace bra folded in her hands, “Why did you lie in your report? I didn’t ask you to do that.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. This was a much easier conversation for him to handle. “I don’t think I that I did lie.”

“Mulder,” she scolded, “you said that I had to shoot him. That it was a clear-cut case of self-defense.”

“It was.”

“No, it wasn’t. You were there! You had your gun on him. You had him contained. There was no reason for me to shoot him.”

“I don’t see it that way.”

“That’s the way it happened.”

“Scully, if you had not shot him in that moment, he would have gone after you. He was not going to stop until you were dead.”

She looked up at him defiantly, dropping the bra on the floor and crossing her arms, “There is simply no way for you to know that. I can’t believe something for which there is not a shred of actual proof simply because I find it more convenient to do so.”

“Well, I can’t believe that you would shoot anyone in cold blood, no matter what state of mind you might have been in.”

“I’m not saying that.”

“What are you saying, then?”

She shook her head slowly, breaking eye contact. “I don’t know.”

He placed on hand gingerly on her shoulder. “You’re tired, you barely slept last night. I’m sure you’re hungry too. I can call you a cab if you want, but I’d rather you stayed here.” She dropped her shoulders and placed her hand on top of his. He took this as agreement. “Go get changed. I’ll go grab the takeout menus.”

She nodded and grabbed the shirt and shorts he had given her the night before from where they had fallen to the floor in the frenzy of her packing. He went into the kitchen and rifled through the drawer to find his stash of menus from nearby restaurants. He brought them into the bedroom with him and sat on the end of the bed.

The door to the bathroom opened and he heard her feet padding along the floor. He continued looking through the menu options as she entered the room. “Are you in the mood for Chinese or Indian? How about Thai?”

When she didn’t respond immediately, he looked up. Oh crap, he thought.

He recognized the expression on her face as one he had fortunately only seen once or twice before and he began to brace himself against what he knew was coming. She had apparently realized something halfway through changing, because she stood in front of him in only his button-up shirt, her pale legs stark against the blue.

“What I was trying to say is that I don’t need your protection.”

“I know that, Scully.”

“Do you, though? I didn’t ask for you to cover for me with Skinner today. I didn’t ask for you to come bursting into my apartment last night.”

“Are you seriously mad at me for having your back? I’m your partner—”

“I’m mad at you for apparently thinking me too weak to be accountable for my own actions.”

He looked at her in shock, “Scully, I have never, not since the moment I met you, thought of you as in any way weak. I have relied on your strength more times than I can even count. And I hope nothing I’ve done has ever indicated that I in any way see you otherwise.”

She took a few steps to her left and paused to stare at the wall for a moment before turning back to him. “I appreciate that. It’s just… I’m not sure you understand what it’s like to do this work as a woman.”

“I know they don’t always make it easy at the Bureau, but I think you’ve more than proven yourself to everyone who matters.”

“It’s just not that. It’s—well, you know what they call us: ‘Mr. and Mrs. Spooky’.”

“Come on, Scully, you can’t let that bother you. They’re small-minded idiots who couldn’t last a day doing the work we do.”

She shook her head. “It’s not the ‘Spooky,’ Mulder, it’s the ‘Mrs.’ They’ve taken away my identity and they’ve merged me with you. They’ve implied that the only reason I’m on the X-Files is because....” She trailed off, gesturing at him and then back at herself. “I am my own person. And I want to stay that way, so I don’t have the luxury of your beliefs, your certainty.”

Now it was his turn to get angry. “Luxury? Scully, I’ve thrown away my career for this work. I’ve become a joke. I lost my father, my sister, even my mind.”

She met his anger in kind. “It’s not about the costs of the work. I lost my sister, too, remember? I lost my health. I lost my chance….” She trailed off again, placing her hand on her stomach and looking down. In that moment, all his anger dissipated. He took the whole of her in, scanning her from head to toe. Flushed from anger, eyes filled with sadness, she was beautiful as ever. Her lips shone as bright red as her hair. His shirt draped loosely over her breasts and he could see, faintly, the outline of her nipples pressing against the soft material, making him blush. He took in the smooth paleness of her thighs. Her toes were painted a bright, scarlet red. He imagined her bent over her feet, carefully painting them, her reminder to herself of her womanhood. Her secret rebellion of feminity.

She finished her thought, “…it’s about being my own person. And every time you ask me to follow you blindly and offer me belief and conjecture instead of hard facts as proof, you ask me to give that up.”

“Oh, Scully,” he dropped his shoulders and sighed. He stood up from the bed and walked over to where she stood. He stared down at her, almost losing himself in her pale eyes. “I would not change one single thing about who you are. I think you are as close to perfect as anyone could get, and—“ he hesitated, remembering her reaction the last time he had spoken the three words that lay formed on his lips “—I love you. And everything you are.” He laid one hand on each side of her face and brought his lips to her forehead, gently, then quickly kissed each cheek. He pulled away, looked into her eyes again, and absently ran one finger along her bottom lip. His body screamed at him to place his lips against hers. But her face was inscrutable, contained no invitation, so he pulled away and began to walk out of the room.

He took one step, but she grabbed his arm before he could take another. He looked back at her and was surprised to see her working the top button of the shirt open with her fingers. Then the second button. The third. He didn’t dare move a muscle for fear of disturbing what he was witnessing at that moment. She made quick work of the rest of the buttons, then slowly slipped the shirt off her shoulders. He heard it fall to the ground at her feet. She leaned down and hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her underwear and those, too, slipped to the ground.

He could hardly breath, afraid that if he said or did anything in this moment, the spell would break. He stared down at her, taking the whole of her in: the round curve of her breasts punctuated by rosy nipples, her stomach and slender hips spattered with light freckles, the dark patch of hair between her legs….

“Mulder,” she said quietly.

He didn’t even register that she had spoken. He could hear the pulsing of his heart in his ears. His throat felt suddenly dry and his mind uncharacteristically blank. The silence in the room grew as he continued to stare at her.

“Fox.” She had only called him that once before, and the strangeness of hearing it spoken in her voice jolted him back to himself. She was staring up at him. Her eyes were welled with embarrassed tears and just then, one rolled out and down her cheek. He leaned down and placed his lips against her cheek where the tear had left a trail. He grabbed the back of her head with both hands, twining his fingers through her hair, and he put his lips against hers.

She met his kiss with equal passion, and they stood like that for a long moment, breathing each other in. He broke the kiss and pressed his lips against her jaw, then trailed kisses down her neck and bare shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him under his suit jacket, pulling herself close. They kissed again and she parted her lips, their tongues rolling over each other in her mouth.

She broke away, breathing heavily, and smiled up at him before pushing his suit jacket off his shoulders. He began to loosen his tie, but she grabbed his hands and shook her head, pulling them down to lie at his side. She undid his tie and slipped it off his neck, throwing it across the room. Kissing his neck, she unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt and spread it out to get at the bare skin beneath. She placed a wet kiss against his bare chest and he shivered. She continued down his torso until his shirt, too, ended up thrown across the room.

He looked down at her, kneeling naked in front of him, hands around his hips, trailing kisses up and down his abdomen. A part of him did not believe this was happening. A dream perhaps, the product of an X-file. Maybe he was still stuck underground being devoured slowly by green slime, turned complacent by the realization of his many fantasies.

She stood up and he wrapped his arms around her. She turned her head and kissed his shoulder, his bicep, his forearm. What a way to go, he thought. He heard the sound of his belt buckle being opened, followed by a zipper being undone. He brought his mouth against hers again, reveling in the soft taste of her lips. She reached her hand under the waistband of his underwear and gripped him softly. His eyes rolled back into his head at the sensation. It had been too long since anyone but himself had touched him in that way.

This sprung him into action and he walked her towards the bed, slipping out of his shoes and pants as they went. At the foot of the bed, he paused for just a moment to relieve himself of his socks and underwear. They fell together onto the bed, bodies and legs wrapped together. Kiss after kiss, they explored each other’s bodies with their hands, lips, tongues, the only sounds that filled the room the occasional moan when a delicate spot was discovered. Their bodies were hot against each other and a light sheen of sweat developed on their skin.

After a few minutes, he rolled her onto her back and kissed a trail down the front of her until he reached her breasts. He placed his mouth over her left nipple, rolling it around his tongue. He gently scraped his teeth against it and she arched at the sensation. He gave the same treatment to her left nipple, then continued his journey down, kissing her ribs, her stomach, her hips. The salt of her sweat filled his mouth and nostrils.

Her legs spread open at his gentle touch and he kissed the inside of one thigh, then the other. He heard her breath quicken as he drew closer to the core of her. He placed his mouth against her, lips parted to allow his tongue to find the small nub of her sex. When his tongue brushed against it, she yipped and then giggled. He smiled, adding this moment to the array of giggles he kept on hand in his mind. He returned to his work and she wrapped her fingers in his hair and writhed beneath him. Small whimpers escaped from her lips and he felt the muscles of her stomach and legs twitch beneath his hands.

He could feel her tugging gently at his hair, trying to pull him back up. He obliged and brought his mouth against hers once more, brushing his teeth against her lips. She broke the kiss and stared at him, face flushed, eyes glassy, and wriggled beneath him until he felt his penis pressed up against the soft wetness of her.

Holding himself up with his left hand, he used his right to position himself and then slowly pushed into her. She sucked a mouthful of air in quickly in a gasp and he paused, holding himself as still as possible. “Are you okay?” he asked, eyes filled with concern.

“Yes,” she whispered, and he could tell she was embarrassed, “it’s just, it’s been a while.”

He pressed his lips against her forehead, her nose, the corner of her mouth. “For me, too,” he whispered against her. This seemed to relax her, and he pushed himself into her further until he was fully encased in her warmth. He pulled himself almost out of her and felt her hands come to rest against his hips. She gripped his hips tightly and he pushed into her again, eliciting a different sort of gasp this time.

They set a rhythm together, slow and languorous. She wrapped her legs around him and crossed her ankles together, resting her heels against his buttocks, trapping their bodies together. Their height difference made it so that he couldn’t maintain his leverage and kiss her at the same time without the both of them straining their necks, so she traced kisses along his clavicle and his arms, pausing here and there to suck or nip at the skin. For his part, he concentrated on keeping his rhythm and on keeping himself from finishing too quickly. It really had been too long.

He heard her breath hitch and quicken, and began to notice the involuntary twitches of her muscles against his body. He felt a heat and a tightening in the pit of his stomach and knew they were both drawing close. As he quickened his pace, he found himself uncertain of where he ended and she began. All he could feel was the heat, all he could smell or taste was the sweat, all he could hear was their breath, now in unison. He closed his eyes and they filled with a white-hot light as he lost track of himself in the tangle of limbs and hair and skin….

When he came to, he was on top of her still, his head resting on her solar plexus, his fingers situated along the plane of her pelvis. She was scraping her fingers through his hair and the sensation sent chills of pleasure down his spine. His head rose and fell with each breath she took. He felt a dull ache on his right shoulder and glanced at the source of the sensation. He caught sight of a spot of red and when he realized what it was, he laughed. He turned his head, resting his chin against her and staring at her from in between the small mounds of her breasts. “Did you bite me?”

She looked away and blushed, apparently embarrassed at her own loss of control. “Not on purpose.”

He laughed again and the movement triggered a stinging sensation on his shoulder blades. He tried to swivel his head around to see where it was coming from, but couldn’t get a good look. “And my back?” he asked.

“My nails,” she said, clicking them together absentmindedly. “Sorry.”

He rested his head back in to the position he had woken in. “Well, I’m just going to take it as a compliment.” She guffawed, causing his head to move up and down. “I wish I’d known sex with you would be an extreme sport, though, I might have brought some protection.”

She tensed beneath him. “Protection! Mulder, we didn’t….”

He smiled. “Don’t worry, Scully, I’m, how-you-say, clean.”

She relaxed. “Me too. And it’s not like we have to worry about…,” she trailed off, but he knew what she was thinking. He pressed his lips against her stomach, as if a kiss from him could heal the unspeakable violence that had been done to her five years ago.

They fell silent, and she began to play with his hair again. He traced his fingers lazily over the outline of her hipbone and replayed the evening in his head. Sometimes he truly loved having a photographic memory.

“You said it’d been a while?”

“It was…before we met,” she said, “before I was assigned to be your partner.”

“That guy in Philadelphia?” he traced a circle around her belly button with his finger, remembering the photograph of her tattoo that he had placed in the file of the incident.

“It never got that far.” He smiled at this knowledge. He had been confused and jealous at her tight-lipped refusal to explain what all had happened during those two days, and he was happy that none of his fears had actually been realized. She trailed her fingernails down his spine, causing an involuntary shiver. “You?”

He thought about lying. He was afraid the truth might be painful for her, and he was ashamed of it. But to lie to her now would betray the foundation upon which their entire relationship was built. He braced himself. “About five years ago. When you were…missing.” The word seemed so inadequate to encompass where she had been and what had been done to her.

“Oh.” Her voice was soft, and he couldn’t bring himself to look at her face.

“I was lost, Scully. I was here but I was more lost than you were. I think—I think it was my way of trying to self-destruct.” He paused, trying to find the words. “I don’t think I ever told you this, but when they brought you back to me, when you were so close but so far away, dying in that hospital bed, I had a plan. A plan to kill the men who had done it all, and I wanted so bad to do it.”

She reached for his hand and twined her fingers with his own. “What stopped you?”

“Melissa, actually. Your sister. She…reminded me that you expected more.”

They lay together in silence, their bodies rising and falling together in unison. He closed his eyes and felt himself begin to doze. His mind wandered. He was thinking about the first time he had laid eyes on her. He’d been suspicious, but intrigued by her at the same time. And even though he’d known her purpose in being there, he had wanted to share everything he knew with her. That feeling had never gone away. Even now, a part of him ached for a new case, a new exploration, a new adventure they could embark on together. He was a shark, unable to keep still. But, somehow, in this moment he was content in her arms, and he did not want to leave….

He must have fallen asleep, because he was unceremoniously jolted awake by the sound of her stomach growling right beneath his ear.

“Scully?! Was that you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mulder.” Her tone was light, playful.

He placed his lips on her stomach and blew a long, wet raspberry. She giggled and flailed beneath him, pushing him off of her.

“I think some dinner might finally be in order.” He untangled himself from the bed and gathered up the takeout menus from where he’d dropped them on the floor. “The usual?”

***

“Do you have aaaannnyyy…eights?” She was sitting cross-legged in his bed. Regrettably, she had put his shirt back on while they waited for the food. The sleeves were rolled up to her elbow and the top few buttons unbuttoned. She was in a playful mood; her cards were drawn up to her face and she peeked out over them as she posed the question.

He sat across from her, their knees almost touching. He too was, regrettably, slightly more clothed than earlier in the evening. “Gah! How do you do that?” She threw her hands in the air and wiggled around in a gesture of celebration as he handed her the three cards he had been hoarding in his hand. “Have you recently come into contact with any pieces of an ancient alien spaceship, Agent Scully?”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s just about paying attention.”

“Well, maybe there’s something in this room I’m finding a little bit distracting at the moment.” He waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively and she smiled. “I mean,” he gestured over her shoulder, “that crack in my wall is just captivating.”

She rolled her eyes again.

“Okay, Scully, I’ve got it this time. Do you have any…fives?”

She pulled a card out of her hand and began to hand it over to him. He reached out, but before he could grab it, she yanked it back. “Just kidding. Go fish!”

He shook his fist at her in a playful show of anger. “Uncalled for, getting my hopes up like that.”

“Woe is you,” she shot back. “My turn. Do you have any Jacks?”

He shook his head, “Nope.”

“Mulder! You cheater!” Her tone was indignant.

“I have no idea on what you are basing these unfounded and, frankly, slanderous accusations—“

“You asked for them three turns ago.”

“I simply don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Mulder,” she scolded. He smiled back at her. Her hand darted out and, before he could react, grabbed his card. She flipped them around to show the Jack of Hearts nestled in the middle of the hand.

“I deny everything.” He reached to retrieve his cards, but she pulled them away from him. He finally managed to grab her wrist and the game was soon forgotten as they playfully wrestled over the cards, filling the room with laughter.

They ended with him on top of her, both hands clasped around her wrists. She released the cards from her grip and they tumbled silently to the bed and slid to the floor. Straining her neck, she placed her lips on his, forcing his mouth open with her tongue. His hold on her wrists loosened and she broke free, flipping him onto his back, pressing his arms against the pillow above his head.

“Cheater.”

She shrugged. “All’s fair.”

Just like that she was kissing him again, their lips, tongues, and teeth mashing together. She released her grip on his wristss and placed her hands on either side of his head. They came up for air and she gently nipped at his lower lip. She kissed her way down his neck, chest, and stomach, and with each one he felt the rough wetness of her tongue darting out against his skin.

She hooked her fingers in the waistband of his shorts and they soon found their way to the floor. He was semi-hard in her hands as she leaned over and traced the length of him with her tongue. He groaned as she took him into her mouth, sliding him in and out, running her lips over the sensitive skin.

Gripping the sheets on either side of him, he looked down his body at her. He was struck by how, even now, her strength shown from every part of her. Here she was, kneeling over him, eyes closed, lips and hands wrapped around him, spit gathering at the corners of her mouth. Yet every inch of her radiated power and control. Seeing her like that caused the glowing warmth to grow in the pit of his stomach. He rotated his hips and called for her to stop.

She sat up and smiled at him, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.

“You are too much for me, woman.” He let go of the sheets and dropped his head back onto the pillow.

She laughed, and in a quick movement she kicked one of her legs over his body to straddle him. He looked up at her as she pulled the shirt over her head and tossed it aside. He would never get used to seeing her like this, soft curves and rosy cheeks and swollen lips. He thought of the ancient Greek writings he had studied, briefly, in his time at Oxford. He now understood the ephemeral yet everlasting beauty they had tried to accomplish in their descriptions of the goddesses. None of those words would have done her justice in that moment. He reached up and ran his hands over her thighs, her waist, her breasts.

She rose up on her knees and, using one hand to position him, came down again, drawing him into her in one smooth, lazy movement. He arched into her and tightened his hold on her hips, pressing his fingers into the soft tissue. She looked down at him, eyes grown hazy with desire. “I am exactly what you deserve.”

She rose up and down again, setting a rhythm so slow as to drive him mad. She ran her hands over his chest, fingers playing with the hairs that peppered his bare skin. For his part, he simply watched her, taking in every inch of skin, every small expression, every twitch of every muscle. The parts of her he could not see, he memorized with his fingers.

Over the next few minutes she quickened her pace, and he began to feel the pressure growing inside him. “Slow down,” he said quietly, “catch up with me.” She complied and he reached his arm up to cup the side of her face. She took hold of his other hand and drew it towards the center of her pleasure, the instruction clear. As he used one thumb to stroke at the nub of her, he placed the other over her lips. Eyes closed, her mouth opened in a moan and he felt her grip the pad of his thumb between her teeth. She squeezed gently, sending a jolt down his arm.

She sped up again and he felt her losing the last tenuous thread of control she had remaining. He let himself sink into the sensation of their bodies together and he sensed her doing the same. After a few moments, she shook on top of him with a small cry, digging her nails into the skin on his chest. The pressure inside him exploded as she collapsed on top of him.

She slid off him and they settled into position together, her head on his chest, arm and leg flung over him. Their breathing returned to normal as he traced shapes down her back and she ran her fingers over the crescent shaped marks on his chest.

“You know,” he slurred, half asleep, “we really oughtta cut your nails.”

“Shut up, Mulder.”

***

In his sleep he dreamt of Aphrodite. She approached him, clad in emerald silk. She was surrounded by a soft, silver light and he could not make out her features, but every part of him reacted to her presence. In a sultry tone, she whispered to him the secrets of the universe. She spoke to him for hours so that his eyes eventually grew accustomed to the silver light and he could finally see her. Her pale skin contrasted with the deep emerald of her garb. She was short, with round lips, pale eyes, and a small nose. Her hair was auburn.

***

The next morning he tried to cook her breakfast, burnt it, and then promised to spring for donuts on their way into work. They shared the shower, not to conserve water or time but to prolong as much as possible the presence of each other’s naked bodies. They playfully jostled for room at the vanity as he shaved and she applied her make up.

Standing in front of the door, they shared one more soft kiss, reminiscent of the one he had placed on her at the birth of the new year. As they parted, he saw her frown. “What happens when we leave here, Mulder?”

“We go to work. We catch a new case. We argue about it. We solve it. We come home and we do this all over again. Rinse and repeat.”

She looked up at him, uncertain. “Could it really be that easy?”

He shrugged, reaching past her to open the door. She walked out into the hallway and he followed suit. “It’s a whole new world, Scully.”

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**Author's Note:**

> The writer is a notoriously insecure creature. If the story is good, she most definitely needs to hear it. If it’s crap, she definitely needs to hear it so she can delete it and pretend she never wrote it. In summary, please comment.


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